Category Archives: Legal Updates

A doctor and patient claim Washington’s new medical marijuana regulations merging the industry with recreational pot markets violate their right to doctor-patient confidentiality.

The law, which requires existing dispensaries to operate from a licensed retail pot shop and reduce patient possession amounts, will go in effect July 1.

Dr. Gregory Carter and his patient Eric Mevis sued the state in Federal Court last week, saying the new rules are unconstitutional and violate the First Amendment rights of physicians and patients.

Doctors are forced to violate federal law and patients are required to incriminate themselves under the new law, according to the complaint.

“This action seeks a declaration that physicians and patients have the right, protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to communicate in the context of a bona fide physician-patient relationship, without intervention by the defendants, about the issue of marijuana as medicine,” the lawsuit states.

The new law, known as the Cannabis Patient Protection Act, uses regulations in place for recreational pot use and adopts them for medical marijuana.

Patient possession limits will be significantly reduced from 24 ounces to three ounces, and the number of plants a patient can grow is down from 15 to six. All medical marijuana dispensaries will also be forced to operate from a licensed retail pot shop or close.

Carter is currently a medical director for a Spokane rehabilitation hospital. Mevis suffers from an incurable neurodegenerative disorder and uses medical marijuana for palliative care.

They say the new regulations will also force them to give up doctor-patient privacy.

“Now as a precondition to either arrest protection or in the alternative the right to assert the affirmative defense, the act now requires that the physician affirmatively prescribe the amount of marijuana that the patient needs. The form requires the physician to divulge the medical condition of the patient, that the patient is forced to reveal to non-health care professional that works at a marijuana retail outlet store, with an endorsement at a marijuana retail outlet store,” the complaint states. “The requirement that the form be used and a non-medical third party participate in the process impermissibly infringes on the doctor patient relationship.”

Marijuana retailers are not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration or the Drug Enforcement Administration to dispense a schedule I controlled substance, according to the lawsuit.

Carter and Mevis say the new system will require them to break federal law.

Carter also claims the regulations interfere with his ability to properly treat patients by “arbitrarily” setting marijuana limits.

“Dr. Carter would need to state the amount on the authorization form for plaintiff Mevis which would exceed the non-scientific standard that only allows for 15 plants, arbitrarily set by the legislature,” the complaint states. “This simply is not enough marijuana to treat his illness. If plaintiff Mevis does not register his authorization, he will only be entitled to possess the same amount of legal marijuana afforded under the State’s recreational law, and be able to grow 4 marijuana plants. He will only be entitled to assert an affirmative defense and not receive arrest protection.”

Mevis says he will have to disclose possibly incriminating and private medical information to receive a required identification card for marijuana access.

“By enacting the Cannabis Patient Protection Act, the legislature codified its desire to interfere with a physician’s ability to practice medicine without fear of punishment, or be denied any right or privilege, for having recommended marijuana to a patient for medical purposes,” the lawsuit states. “By enacting the Cannabis Patient Protection Act, the legislature codified its desire to ensure that all seriously ill Washington residents are forced to participate in a state sanctioned database or face criminal sanctions.”

Carter and Mevis want an injunction preventing the bill from taking effect until the court can decide on constitutionality. They are represented by Douglas Hiatt in Seattle.

Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement that before passage of the bill, Washington’s medical marijuana industry had been “completely unregulated.”

Several Seattle medical marijuana businesses have sued the state Liquor and Cannabis Board, alleging that regulators are not following rules in issuing new licenses for retail stores.

Several longtime Seattle medical-marijuana businesses filed a lawsuit Friday against the state Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) alleging that regulators are not following their own rules in issuing a new round of licenses for retail stores.

At issue is the process of bringing medical businesses into the state’s licensed recreational retail system. The Legislature last year gave the LCB authority to license new stores, with priority given to longtime medical players seen as good actors, in following rules and paying taxes.

The lawsuit filed in Thurston County Superior Court by medical-marijuana activists John Davis, Philip Dawdy, Ken Adams and others contends that the LCB has not used a merit-based system to award new licenses.

Instead of licensing longtime operators, the lawsuit says the LCB is giving licenses to businesses that did not exist months ago. “The entire process is a mess,” Davis said in a statement. “I am watching phantom entities gobble up scarce licenses that will put real people out of business.”

An LCB spokesman said agency officials don’t comment on lawsuits.

One underlying problem, according to Friday’s complaint, is the priority system the LCB created to license new applicants and meet the Legislature’s mandate to shut down unlicensed medical-marijuana operations by July.

State law gives top priority to applicants who applied for state recreational licenses before July 2014, who were operating or employed by collectives before 2013, had a business license and history of paying applicable state taxes and fees.

The lawsuit says applicants have “cobbled” together teams that combine former collective employees with nonmedical entrepreneurs. Called “Frankenstein” applicants by some, these cobbled groups should not get licensing priority over longtime collectives, the lawsuit says, but apparently are.

While many cobbled groups have merit, it is contrary to the Legislature’s intent to license them to the detriment of existing collectives, the lawsuit says.

Other complaints in the suit allege that the state’s method for capping the number of retail licenses is flawed, and that the LCB’s requirement that applicants have a zero tax balance, instead of a “history of paying all applicable state taxes and fees,” is unfair. Applicants on a payment plan with the state or appealing state charges should not be penalized, the lawsuit argues.

The lawsuit by the Spencer Palace Law firm of Everett seeks an order for the LCB to remedy the problem.

A similar lawsuit was filed Thursday by attorney Elizabeth Hallock on behalf of Seattle’s Choice Wellness.

The upshot of the state’s licensing plan is that Seattle’s total number of retail stores will double from an initial 2014 allotment of 21 to 42. But 48 medical storefronts met the city’s regulatory standards as good players in a culling process last year. It appears some will not receive retail licenses in Seattle.

Lawsuits have been filed by medical marijuana dispensary owners, stakeholders and patients against the City of Seattle! The following are quotes taken from the press conference held on September 30th, 2015:

Washington legislation has effectively abolished medical marijuana by making it virtually impossible to find a doctor who is ready to sign the forms that are required, cutting off what people think is the “head of the snake”. People are not going to be able to get doctors’ authorizations any more under the new rules.

Washington’s Initiative 502 is now looked at around the country as what not to do when you legalize marijuana. We think the best thing to do is take this whole thing down to the ground; start over again and do it right. You know there is an old navy expression: “There is never enough time to do anything right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it right the second time.” Unfortunately, that may be true for us.

I’m Douglas Hiatt; Erin Kelley, Jeff Steinborn and myself filled a class action lawsuit with City of Seattle on Monday on behalf of our client, Columbia Holistic Health and the garden manager Erin Palmer. We had several causes of action against the city – three are primarily state law causes and there are two federal causes of action. The three state law causes are:
– The first cause of action is against the City of Seattle. All chapter 1 cities lack the authority under state law to regulate marijuana, tax marijuana, or do anything with marijuana other than enforce the criminal law. They simply have no regulatory authority and no ability to tax and that is in the city’s charter. That would apply to other first class charter cities; they simply do not hold the ability to regulate marijuana on their own and the ordinances that the city passed need be held void. We are going to seek injunctions preventing their enforcement until the courts find them void which we believe they will do.
– The second cause of action involves a case that has been decided in Spokane, Department of revenue VS Duncan, that basically said the state lacked the authority to tax marijuana because it met the exceptions for medicine from 2011-2014 when the state changed the law. That is essentially the time my client is being taxed on or imputed tax on and we expect that issue will go on to the Supreme Court. It is currently at division 3. We have raised that to preserve it for our clients.
– The third cause of action is that the City of Seattle is violating the federal drug free workplace act, which basically forbids the city from having any involvement with marijuana regulations and marijuana activities and forbids all employees from doing so. No matter if they are on their own time or government time, it is an illegal activity and they are risking forfeiting millions of dollars in federal grants.
– In addition to that there are two federal cause of action that we believe will be heard in the second case because we believe the state causes will be dispositive; but none-the-less we raised them for our clients those federal issues involve preemption issues over whether the state can tax marijuana at all, whether the state can force you to participate in tax collection schemes or imputation schemes that violate the 5th amendment. Those causes of action are currently at the Supreme Court in a case called Nickerson VS Inslee, which we are asking to court to stay those issues pending Supreme Court action.

We have filed a separate claim along with the other attorneys in the first action on one simple basis: Essentially, the mayor’s new plan is resulting in something we think is quite worrying: re-criminalization. The mayor’s office names this ordinance complying with state law. Our specific claims disagrees with this proposition, but in essence it is the re-criminalization that we are concerned about. We joined this lawsuit not lightly. This is a very important action and we felt that there is one basic proposition that should be upheld everywhere where cannabis is legal. Where cannabis is legal those who possess or otherwise participate in the cannabis market should not be considered or treated as a criminal. The mayor’s ordinance will seek to close at least 58 businesses, possibly many more. We feel this is wrong and we also feel that the mayor’s office issued business licenses in 2015 and now seeks to close these exact same businesses on the basis of operating an illegal entity. We feel this is wrong, we feel this is duplicitous and we intend to fight for patients’ rights.

Columbia Holistics: Basically the whole thing is unfair. We have been operating since before the time they implemented the grandfather clause. Medical marijuana built the market and now that they have it they are basically eliminating their competition. That’s basically what they did. They are using all sorts of crazy tactics.

Save WA MMJ: The lawyers mentioned that there were four different agencies targeting you? What were they?

Columbia Holistics: They were trying everything – zoning, the audit, the latest one was search warrant and police. They came out again. They asked us to do all this stuff and we did it. Then they came with the police.

Save WA MMJ: What did they use to justify that?

Columbia Holistics: Nothing! They came with the police and a search warrant, said get out of the way and cut open the safe. They also said we missed a couple semesters of city taxes. They are trying to embellish what I made by saying I have to pay taxes on 2 million dollars in sales over six months. I didn’t [make that much], that is not true.

We also have a 502 spot with an extractor. Somebody broke in and the police came. They took the extractor, then filed criminal charges against us. They have been coming at us from every way. I’m sure they are going to file criminal charges for that search warrant.

Coverage of the Lawsuits in the mainstream media:

As part of Mayor Ed Murray’s plan to crack down on Seattle’s misbehaving medical marijuana dispensaries, the city has been conducting raids and surprise inspections at dispensaries that are considered “bad actors”—those that sell to minors or people who don’t qualify as medical patients, those that are being investigated by law enforcement or that didn’t have a business license before January 1, 2013, and others. Two of the targeted dispensaries—Columbia City Holistic Health and Better Day Gardens—have filed suit in response, alleging the city is violating federal laws by regulating the medical marijuana market and seeking injunctions allowing their shops to continue operating.

A second suit, filed by Sean Badgley of the C3 Law Group, alleges that the city misled dispensary owners by issuing them a 2015 business license and then passing an ordinance that forces them to close before the license’s expiration.

The owner of a West Seattle medical marijuana shop says he got a big surprise Tuesday morning when city officials showed up for a surprise inspection. “(They said) ‘if you don’t let us tour your facility we’re just going to revoke your business license and there’s nothing you can do about it,” said A.J. Cornwall, who runs the Better Day Gardens co-operative.

Unsure of his options, Cornwall called his attorney for advice. “Basically, I told them we weren’t going to be agreeing to any search like that and that they’d have to come back with a warrant if they wanted to do a search, and that’s what A.J. told them and they left,” said attorney Douglas Hiatt.

On Monday, Hiatt filed a complaint against the City of Seattle and Mayor Ed Murray accusing the city of “unconstitutionally assessing taxes and regulating marijuana.” “The fact of the matter is the city doesn’t have those rights, and that’s what this lawsuit is all about,” Hiatt said. “City of Seattle, you’ve got to stop. You can’t license marijuana, you can’t regulate it, you can’t tax it, and you can’t go and shut these people down. If you want to do that, you have to do it in the criminal courts.

Seattle’s deputy city attorney says they city received the lawsuit. He said the city believes its marijuana ordinances — which regulate medical marijuana — are constitutional and the city will defend them in court. A representative from the city echoed those claims, saying the regulations were “passed unanimously by City Council to ensure a safe, legal marijuana market.”

Hiatt doesn’t agree, saying the city needs to “stop this idiotic governmental action.” Cornwall said he believes regulating medical marijuana is necessary, but taking it away from people who have experience distributing it is an unfair move. “I would question why we’re putting tax dollars into stopping medical marijuana when we pay our taxes,” he said. “I’m a licensed business, I’ve been one since 2012 and we’re still putting funds toward stopping medical marijuana.”

WSLCB Lawsuit:

A case is currently under way in the Superior Court of Thurston County, in which Mr. John Worthington is attempting to repeal i502. We will be posting more on this case in the future once official filed documents can be obtained (the document linked above is a draft, and is an un-filed version).

Lawsuits have been filed to stop Mayor Murray’s crackdown on medical cannabis in Seattle! Sensible Washington will be holding a press conference TODAY, September 30, 2015 at 2:00 pm at 119 1st Ave S Suite 260, Seattle, WA 98104. If you can attend, please show up to support! SaveWAMMJ will be there.

Four attorneys representing three different law firms have filed suit to stop Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s crackdown on patients and purveyors in medical cannabis. They will be holding a joint press conference on September 30, 2015 at 2:00 pm at 119 1st Ave S Suite 260, Seattle, WA 98104.

Mayor Murray recently forced an Ordinance through the city council. Nick Lacata, who is not seeking reelection, introduced the Ordinance; the brain child of David Mendoza, the mayor’s cannabis czar. The Ordinance is the Mayor’s attempt to shutter at least 58 businesses within a month, without regard to patient access, or dispensary owners’ ability to properly conclude their business affairs.
The Ordinance threatens referral to law enforcement agencies. It effectively overrides a 2003 Ordinance, passed by the voters rather than city council, which ordered the both the city attorney and Seattle Police Department to completely deprioritize cannabis enforcement. The Ordinance further threatens fines in excess of a $1,000 per day against purveyors who continue to serve their patients.

The City began enforcement efforts in earnest, conducting sting operations throughout late August. The city now intends to begin assessing penalties and potential criminal actions immediately, based on its clandestine efforts.

The legal theories challenging the Mayor’s crackdown are numerous, as the Mayor’s Ordinance uses several questionable mechanisms. Attorneys Douglas Hiatt, Aaron Pelley and Jeff Steinborn, have joined forces to fight the City’s Ordinances and will argue the city has no authority to conduct the current crackdown.

Mr. Sean Badgley and several members of his team at C3 Law Group PLLC, intend to argue the city in effect lied to the dispensary owners when it issued business licenses in 2015, thereby encouraging patients and businesses alike to believe the mayor took patient access seriously. The attorneys will ask a court to order the city to cease its crackdown in injunction hearings set as soon as possible..

C3 Law Group PLLC is a law firm dedicated to the legitimate cannabis industry. It advocates for a free and fair cannabis market, and routinely represents clients against the state and local governments. – TheJointBlog

A team of attorneys will soon file a series of lawsuits to place an injunction on, and overturn Washington State’s Senate Bill 5052, a recently signed law that will drastically reduce the rights of medical cannabis patients in the state while closing dispensaries and establishing an illegal patient registry.

Signed by Governor Jay Inslee in April, Senate Bill 5052 – which takes full effect in July, 2016 – will drastically reduce the amount of cannabis patients can possess and cultivate, making felons out of those who possess currently allowable limits. The measure will also lead to the closure of nearly every medical cannabis dispensary in the state, and will establish an illegal patient registry that is in clear violation of federal HIPAA laws.

The lawsuits will seek to place an immediate injunction on the new law, preventing it from taking effect while the group works to overturn it permanently.

The group of renowned attorneys who will be working on the lawsuits include Sensible Washington co-founders and longtime criminal defense attorneys Douglas Hiatt and Jeffrey Steinborn (who have 70 years combined legal experience), and attorney Aaron Pelley of Pelley Law LLC, among others.

Hiatt tells us that the group will be filing two to three separate lawsuits that will seek to fully dismantle the new law, in order to protect the rights that patients currently have, and to prevent the state from establishing the patient database.